Red
by Complicated-little-Jellie
Summary: Rewrite of the original 'Remembering to let go'. How much of life can Alex take before it catches him. When can he stop running? Now.


_**Hello! Jellie here. I wrote the original of this a while ago, called Remembering to Let go. I reread it and was horrified by the poor writing quality and the number of spelling and grammar mistakes, so I rewrote it under a new name. Hope you enjoy. **_

_**Warning: Swearing (I think), character death and suicide. Quite depressing **_

Humorlessly, Alex smiled. He sat in a chair, alone inside his room, scrolling through his old Facebook page. There was a quote, the YOLO that seemed to have torn through the teenage social networking sights like a bloody plague. It was true, that you honestly only did live once before you died.

But drinking and partying was no sort of YOLO.

It was sad and pathetic, and a waste of a life he had saved. He had saved the lives of teens who thought it was okay to get drunk and high, living the young life that was so casually yet cruelly stolen from him, and saying it like it was an excuse.

Alex couldn't help from ponder whether or not he would prefer that over what he had now. The quote had 600 likes, nearly all his Facebook friends. No, he wouldn't have preferred that life, for he would never have wanted to become the media driven mindless sheep that was the teenage population.

But at the same time, what he had now wasn't actually all that better. Loneliness was never better, it seemed.

* * *

"Alex…none of what you're doing is helping you," Snake told him from his seat of Alex's desk chair. Alex sat on his bed, in his room at the soldier's house. The MI6 shrink had deemed him on the verge of suicidal, and had put him in the residence and care of the medic of K-unit, who seemed to have a degree in this particular area. It made Alex dislike him even more.

Alex remained silent. If he didn't answer, than Snake could say he was in denial. If he did answer, they'd get an idea of what was going on in his head, but there was a reason that it was inside his head. His thoughts were secret, and they were going to stay that way.

"I can help you, but you have to let me in-"

The words 'I can help you' chopped any hope of silence into diced cubes. It made him so terribly, horribly made, and maybe even more desolate than before. "You liar! You can't, no one can. MI6 have set you up here so that you can fix me quickly and have me back on active service again! Well guess what, I'd rather fucking die." Alex all but screamed that so loud that the occupants downstairs, one Wolf and Eagle, had heard and were heading up.

Sprinting from the room, tears prickling his emotionless eyes, Eagle made a grab for him, but an instant reaction through a well-placed kick in the nuts had the soldier on the floor. Alex ran faster then, so fast that he was out the door before it had clicked in the rest of their minds that he was gone.

Running from them. From life and reality. From himself.

* * *

_Ring…Ring…Ring_

"Hello?" He answered cautiously, wary of the blocked number.

"Hey Al, its Tom" the voice on the other end of the line replied. Confusion swept through his mind but he ignored it.

"Oh…Hey Tom, how are you?" Alex asked, guarded.

"Erm, I'm good…" The voice trailed off. Alex knew Tom had something to say to him, he recognised it in the voice that he had confided in throughout his childhood.

There was a silence, as Tom blew up the courage. "Look, Alex, my family and I have moved away, and we're all getting a fresh start, and well, you can't ruin it for me, not when my family are this fragile. I got shot for you Alex, and I'm not risking my life again. I'm sorry. I've blocked the number, so you can't find me. Please don't come looking. I'm sorry. Just too risky," Tom said, as quickly as humanly possible. But he said it forcefully enough to mean something.

Alex didn't need to be a superspy to know what he meant.

"Yeah, okay Tom. I understand. Have a nice life." He hung up.

Then he smashed his mobile to tiny little shards, like what his heart felt like as it thumped unevenly in his torn and scarred chest.

* * *

A bullet exploded through the quiet house.

Mindlessly his body jumped into a protective position, gun in hand, eyes wide open. Alex had been attempting to meditate in his room, but had failed to rest his mind. Realisation hit him only a second later and he was sprinting for the stairs.

The sight before him in their vast kitchen stabbed at his heart, sure it stopped. On the floor, skin as pale as snow as the blood drained, lay Jack. His only kind of mother, the closest thing he'd ever had to a sister, a loyal and loving guardian. There was no point in checking for a pulse, because the neat bullet entry site in the centre of her forehead was a giveaway. That and the ever rising pool of blood soaking into her clothes, darkening her luscious red hair.

Alex's eyes met her eyes, normally sparkling and bright, now clear and lifeless, gazing at the ceiling. He choked a sob and lent heavily against the wall for support. It felt like now he couldn't hold on. How could anyone? The only person who seemed to have ever understood what had been happening to him was lying in a blood of her own blood at his feet.

Face wet with tears, Alex just wanted to scream. Murder seemed plausible in this situation. The only person who he thought deserved to die right now was Alan Blunt, the only man who had lived when the important and loving people of the world had died.

In a way, Blunt ended his life for him, that first day in his office before he jumped onto the flagpole. Despite it all, he didn't have the guts to kill Blunt. He was too broken.

Alex knew that he had to have a record of losing the people he loved, all he knew in under a year. A sick feeling spread in his stomach; why did he deserve to live when the others were dead or suffering?

Being alive right now made him feel unworthy and sick, seeing her lifeless body on the floor, too far for him to reach. Like a wave, anger hit him and he kicked through the wall, the sickening crack of his foot a generous pain. Smiling, he ran before the person knocking at the door broke it down and came to get him.

MI6 would know now, that that was the last straw. How much more could he have taken, anyway?

#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#linebreak#

The murky brown water of the Thames flowed fast beneath him, from where he stood at the very top of Tower Bridge. It had been easy to knock out the security guards, having come out of hours.

Alex Rider smiled.

It seemed death may be the cowards way out, but what more did he have to live for? A lifetime stuck in the grasp of MI6 until he eventually died on a mission was nothing one boy could prosper. So what was the point?

It would so good to be released from the hell he was trapped in…surely, if heaven existed then he would go there, hopefully, and meet his parents. Maybe he'll end up in hell and wait for Alan Blunt to join him, to give him the pain he deserved.

Someone shouted his name, but he ignored them and stood at the edge. They weren't far away and he knew who it would be, Ben Daniels, MI6's final card. The man was screaming his name, but Alex knew that they would take him back to 'The Bank' and scold him for his antics, then give him anti-depressants and send him to a therapist.

No, thank you.

They were so close now. A jump from this height would definitely kill him, as long as he got the angle right. He had been taught how to not cliff jump, so that was exactly what he was going to do. It would be painful, yes, but he deserved nothing less.

He was a monster.

He jumped.

Like a stereotypical scene, everything seemed to go in slow motion, but the Thames never stopped running. In his mind, he played back everything in flashbacks and echoes, not regretting the free-fall, letting go. The water spray hit his arms as he fell down, down to his death. He saw Red.

Then the world turned black.


End file.
